The Collected Letters, Volume 1

I have read over your letter,1 many a time, and every time with renewed pleasure. I will not spend time in congratulating you on the ease of your expression,
the neatness of your stile, or the versatility of your remark:—your letter pos[s]esses, in my eyes, a higher excellence—it is the letter of a friend [underscored twice]. Lives there on Earth, a being formed of such unkindly clay, as to wish, oyster-like, to retire within
his shell, and crawl thro' this world unheeded and unheeding—without one heart to sympathize in his disappointment, or rejoice
at his success? Alive to the joys of sociality, at least I am not that being;—and when I turn my thoughts on the north, the remembrance of here and there a friend with whom I have
been happy—nay perhaps the sensation of some still finer and still stronger attachments!—the idea that these friends, too, sometimes think on me—altogether—sets
o' vibrating the best and the noblest feelings of the heart.— I am got into heroics—but the theme inspires heroics—2

In return for your pleasing letter, I have nothing to give you but dry and musty details about myself—a subject on which it is always disgusting to expatiate;—and which, therefore, I shall dispatch as soon as possible.— In
three words, then, you are to know, that, after going to Annan on Monday morning, I commenced and still continue my teaching—six
hours a-day;—that (as you expected, not inclining to board in the Academy) I procured a furnished room in the house of a Merchant
here—for 4/6 per week;—and that I am perfectly comfortable at present;—and you know the whole.

Annan is perhaps the finest little town in the south of Scotland. Its situation on the banks both of the Solway and Annan,—the
fresh'ning breezes, with which it is visited from the British channel,—the cleanness of its streets, and the neat elegance
of its buildings—all conspire to render it delightful. Here, too, is an immense shoal of gentry [gentry underscored twice]!—nay smile not—gentry—that is to say, hard-handed (aforetime) men of labour—venders of Congo tea,—and retailers of Jamaica pepper,—who thro' cavils and cabals and cash-accompts and treacle and tann-pits3 [treacle and tann-pits underscored twice], have put themselves in condition to swagger round their little ring of vanity, with all the innate worth of lucky Save-alls,4 and all the conscious dignity of purse-proud Hobnails;—who procure for their sons posts in—the Excise; and who after educating their daughters, bring them into the mighty field of Man-catching, and having set them fairly on the scent—‘Cry havoc! and
let slip these dogs of war!’5— To all these I have been introduced, and by them all treated with great condescension:—they and I, 'tis likely, have very different opinions, concerning who it is that condescends.— Those ladies of the chace!—

‘Onward they move a Husband-hunting band,Flaunt o'er the streets, and darken all the land.’6

—‘Peace be to all such!— mark only’—I trade not with them—— Johnson (Clint) is still continuing his practice or rather attendance at Lochmaben. He has been raising the Devil at Ecclefechan concerning some of his love affairs &c &c N. B.— Cannot succeed.

Divinity Johnson has recommenced his school. He is a good lad;—and really I feel for him, for he is so much implicated one
way and another, that he will be obliged to go to Selkirk, next harvest! He is worthy of a better fortune—but what can he do? He is to be examined alongst with Irving Carlyle,7 some of these days, and if found qualified, to be admitted to the privilege of being a—whig Student [underscored twice]. Depend upon it—if they reject him—foul play has been shewn. Their examinations have something in them very original.— Take the following instance. Irving Carlyle (who poor man! full oft has past their ordeal) in [one] of his examinations (on what branch of literature, the learned Doctors were the story sayeth not) was asked— “If a Pot were set on a fire, what is it that would make it boil?”— Irving was dumb—
“Power would make it boil” said the learned Doctors!!—and the examination [underscored twice] closed.

I noticed, with pleasure, the insertion of your
‘Critique’:8 but was very much mortified,—at seeing the pitiful conclusion which the Editor had foisted in,—in addition to the error in
the signature. 'Tis a matter of no consequence—only it ruffles in the mean-time. Our Bard9 has at length compelled them to print his poetry—and prose too,—for, was not that same Blattum-Bulgium disquisition his? And had not he a letter last week ‘on Burns’?— What a flo[w] of language—what a strength of epithet he pos[s]esses!— Do you intend writing any thing more at present?

I have not many friends in Edinr.—remember me in the kindest manner to those I have. Present (I will not say compliments—that is too cold a word) my warmest wishes to Miss J. Merchant. She is a young lady whose acquaintance I would strongly advise you, assiduously to cultivate.— she may
have her foibles—who of us has them not? But in addition to the external accomplishments of an elegant and beautiful form,
she pos[s]esses a refinement of mind and a sensibility of heart, that must command respect and esteem wherever they appear.10—

Nothing will give me more pleasure, My Dear Murr[ay, than] to hear from you frequently. Would it not be better, think y[ou, to] appoint some time—say once a-fortnight—when we should expect each other's letter? Appoint the terms, yourself, of our correspondence—only let me be sure of it. In return for your literary intelligence which will be peculiarly interesting to me, I'm afraid I shall have no equivalent
to offer.— However I shall always take care to repay you with something— I did not send you a letter by Mr. Waugh11—first, because I thought you would not like him; and second, because—I had none to send.— ‘But you will attend’!— A carrier (he brought my trunks safe) is to set off for Edinr about monday and will be with you by Thursday, or so— Now if I can by any means, write another epistle to you, ‘by the sure conveyance of’ this same ‘honest carrier’, I shall certainly look for your answer.— Tell our
Poet, that by Hook or crook, I'll see to have a letter for him by the same opportunity—and let him have one ready in return. Tell Mr. Forrest to be in
the way of getting his poem ready—for a letter he shall have—and a swinging one too—so let him look to it.12— But I am at the end of my paper—good night! my Dear Tom—and believe me

your sincere friend, /

Thomas Carlyle

I don't think I have any great chance of seeing Caven13—at least soon.— Excuse innaccuracies, and the worst of writing. Best respects to Mr & Mrs For[r]est whose kindness I shall not soon forget—

2. Ambivalence was a characteristic of Carlyle and appears early in his development. Well-known instances of it relate to such
opposites as Descendentalism and Transcendentalism, Speech and Silence. In this passage he is speaking in glowing terms of
the needs of his social nature, a passage which complements passages in which he expresses a romantic, Rousseau-like impulse
toward solitude.

8. Murray's critique, which appeared in the Courier on 21 June, dealt favorably with William Nicholson's Tales in Verse and Miscellaneous Poems: Descriptive of Rural Life and Manners and is signed “J. M.”

9. The bard, W. Scott Irving, appears to have sent two letters to the Courier, published on 24 May, in one of which he refused to subscribe to a monument to Burns and in the other of which he attacked Burns's morals and
spoke of the folly of erecting monuments. Both were signed “I. M. W.” His poem, which appeared in the Courier for 21 June (dated by him at Edinburgh on 10 June), was a celebration of peace and the end of the Napoleonic Wars, written on seeing seven thousand prisoners of war being
repatriated. In the same issue there is another letter attacking the morals of Burns. Although it is signed “A. J. Banks of
the Mole, Leatherhead, Surrey, May 28 1814,” it is probably Scott Irving's also. Blatum Bulgium (as it is now spelled) is at Birrens, a place 2½ miles from Ecclefechan,
from which Carlyle supposes Irving had written. The Romans had had a winter camp there, and some of Carlyle's ancestors are
buried there. A letter of 28 June signed “Vindex” in the same issue defends Burns and could be Carlyle's. For further information about Irving, see TC to TM, 21 June 1815.

10. Murray replied on 27 July: “I read to Miss Merchant what you said of her. It made her intolerably vain. She was for writing you immediately. I was
truly sorry I had shewed her it for her capers disgusted me and if she had wrote, her letter I knew would not have been very
acceptable to you.” Murray goes on into a rather scathing criticism of her character and regrets the difficulties involved
in trying to break with her: “I regret very much that I courted her acquaintance so much, for after having had some private
walks with a female a person cannot break the connection for some time with any degree of propriety.”

11. Murray had written on 21 June: “I shall be very glad that you write me by Mr Waugh because to hear from you is always pleasant and because I should like to be acquainted with your friend.”

12. Murray had also written in his letter of 21 June: “Mr For[r]est often recollects the days that are past[;] he would be glad to hear from you and would give you in return a funny letter or perhaps a Poem. … If you would write For[r]est it would make him very proud. He speaks very highly of you— He says he has often fathomed you and whenever you had the wrong side of the question you had recourse to ungenteel language!— Pray write him for fun or
rather out of respect for he is kind.”